今朝のKQEDより。
This year marks the 75th anniversary of one of the worst plane crashes in California history. A flight heading from Oakland to the Mexican border on Jan. 28, 1948 crashed into a canyon near the Central Valley town of Coalinga, killing the 32 people on board.
San Joaquin ValleyのCoalinga、I-5沿い、牛のせいですんごい異臭がするところというイメージなんだけど、７５年前にこんな事件があったことを知る。第２次大戦で不足した労働力を、
The Bracero Program (from the Spanish term bracero [bɾaˈse.ɾo], meaning "manual laborer" or "one who works using his arms") was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated on August 4, 1942, when the United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico.[1] For these farmworkers, the agreement guaranteed decent living conditions (sanitation, adequate shelter, and food) and a minimum wage of 30 cents an hour, as well as protections from forced military service, and guaranteed that a part of wages was to be put into a private savings account in Mexico; it also allowed the importation of contract laborers from Guam as a temporary measure during the early phases of World War II.[2]
こんなEOを発令してメキシコから呼び寄せていたんだそう。この"Bracero program"、現在もあるH-2Aビザの原型なわけだけど、滞在許可が切れた労働者を「国外追放」。
To address the overwhelming amount of undocumented migrants in the United States, the Immigration and Naturalization Service launched Operation Wetback in June 1954, as a way to repatriate illegal laborers back to Mexico.
その飛行機が75年前にCoalingaで墜落してカリフォルニア史上最悪の航空事故に。その報道時、白人パイロット、CA、移民局の職員は遺族のもとに遺体が届けられたけど、メキシコ人労働者たちは"Deportees"という名の下、ひとまとめに埋葬されたらしい。これが物議を醸し、Woody Guthrieが歌い上げてフォークの名曲に。
今のカリフォルニアの不法滞在メキシカンのはしりであったわけだけど、こういう事情があったとは。
